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Incidental exposure to shared news on Facebook is a vital but understudied aspect of how citizens get involved with politics. This experiment investigates the influence of recommender characteristics (tie strength, political knowledge, political similarity) and different media sources (tabloids, legacy, and digital-born outlets) including multiple mediators (e.g., social pressure, outlet credibility) on incidental exposure to political news on Facebook. A 3 × 3 multi-stimulus, between-subject experiment with two additional quasi-factors and 135 different stimuli was conducted using a representative sample ( N = 507). Results showed that strong ties and recommenders with high knowledge increase news exposure, but the impact of knowledge is limited to recommenders with similar political opinions. Similar effects occur for different media types, which also have an independent impact on news exposure. Structural equation modeling reveals that media source effects are mediated through media perceptions, whereas recommender effects work via the desire for social monitoring and perceived issue importance.

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Introduction -- Chapter One When Social Media Data Disappear -- Chapter Two The Needle in the Haystack: Finding Social Bots on Twitter -- Chapter Three Meeting Youth Where They Are: Challenges and Lessons Learned from Social Media Recruitment for Sexual and Gender Minority Youth -- Chapter Four Qualitative Sampling and Internet Research -- Chapter Five Behind the Red Lights: Methods for Investigating the Digital Security and Privacy Experiences of Sex Workers -- Chapter Six Using Unexpected Data to Study Up: Washington Political Journalism (and the Case of the Missing Press Pass) -- Chapter Seven Social Media and Ethnographic Relationships -- Chapter Eight Ethnographic Research with People Experiencing Homelessness in the Digital Age -- Chapter Nine Going Rural: Personal Notes from a Mixed-Methods Project on Digital Media in Remote Communities -- Chapter Ten Stitching Data: A Multimodal Approach to Learning About Independent Artists' Social Media Use -- Chapter Eleven A Measurement Burst Study of Media Use and Well-Being Among Older Adults: Logistically Challenging at Best -- Chapter Twelve Community-Based Intervention Research Strategies: Digital Inclusion for Marginalized Populations -- Contributors -- Index